“I’ve disconnected both of my boxes (which didn’t work) and will take them back to the local Comcast office next week to say bye-bye.
My cable hasn’t worked properly in over a year and I can happily say that I don’t miss it.”
That’s typical these days. As I wrote in the blog, I currently subscribe only because my homeowner’s association bundles it in with my dues.
My service sucks too. It often gets pixelated and I often watch the news and suddenly it gets stuck so that the anchor appears to have a severe stuttering problem. It is like a bad DVD covered with corn syrup.
You’ve got a signal issue due to wiring either in house or outside. I would have them come fix it.
I know what is causing your problem. The new digital technology does not work well with a poor signal to noise ratio. This is caused by poor mechanical connections (or water saturation) made by the center conductor at the ground block or to the splitter that sends the signal to the different locations in the house. It may even be where your cable connects to the cable input in the back of your cable box. If the box connector has an enlarged center conductor, suspect the box. If you have two TVs, does the problem happen with both TV? If the problem happens at both TVs suspect a poor connection at the house splitter, the ground block, or further back in the system feed.
Your Comcast service technician should have a meter that checks signal to noise as well as the signal level. They may find the problem is not even be at your house, but in the trunk line that feeds the homes in your neighborhood, or in the line splitter that feeds the signal to your house. Anywhere there are these mechanical connections, you can have loss of signal quality. Since Comcast has a Customer Guarantee that says, “We will resolve routine issues in one visit or we’ll credit you $20 or give you a free premium channel for three months,” they had better get that nasty pixelation problem fixed on the first visit.